


Sunshine for a Bat

by AutisticAnxietyDragon



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Justice League - All Media Types, Teen Titans - All Media Types, Young Justice - All Media Types
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-05
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-17 07:27:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29221665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AutisticAnxietyDragon/pseuds/AutisticAnxietyDragon
Summary: Five times Bruce sang 'You are my sunshine' and one time some one sang it to him
Comments: 9
Kudos: 32





	1. Dick

**Dick**

It was after the first time Robin had faced the Joker, the clown had the ability to terrify even the most hardened criminals so a small child really had no chance of coming out unscathed even if he pretended to be. Batman and Bruce could tell something was bothering his foster son, but he felt it wasn’t his place to interfere and expected Dick to come to him if it became to much for him, but he didn’t.

After a month Bruce thought that Dick had gotten over the trauma of meeting the Joker, but he had been wrong so very wrong. He slowly started to notice how tired Dick looked in the morning and had suggested they cut back on patrol times for him but Dick had refused promising that he could take it and Bruce had relented, although he could feel Alfred’s glare on him as he left the kitchen that morning.

Dick went to school and came home like nothing was the matter, he completed his homework without complaint before he went to the cave to train as he always did. Bruce could see Dick was slow and found himself snapping at the poor boy until he ran from the cave and hid from Bruce until it was time for patrol.

After patrol Bruce tried to apologize to Dick but the boy ran from the cave as soon as they reached it, only stopping long enough to change out of his costume while Bruce was getting stitches from Alfred. Bruce brushed it off and filled out reports to send to Gordon before he turned himself in for the night.

* * *

Bruce jerked awake, at first he wasn’t sure what had woken him and he was on high alert (or as much as he could be when his brain was sleep fogged) and it took him a few moments before he recognised the terrified cries of a child. It took him a few minuets more before he was running down the hall to Dick’s room and threw open the door searching for threats before he gaze fell upon the small figure thrashing around in his bed and screaming in Romani, Dick’s native language. Bruce could understand very little of the language that he had tried to learn for the boy, but he wasn’t fluent in it yet so he was unsure what was upsetting the boy in his dreams so he slowly approached and laid a hand on Dick’s shoulder, the boy flinched away and cried out which startled Bruce as well, but he could see Dick would hurt himself before long if he didn’t wake the boy soon so he climbed onto the side of the bed and pulled the nine year old into his arms, holding down the failing limbs to prevent Dick hurting himself while trying to defend himself against what ever it was in his nightmare. “Dick? Come on Dick it’s just a nightmare. Wake up Dick, come on wake up,” Bruce called softly, but it was as if Dick couldn’t hear him so Bruce tried to rack his brain for something to help him. When Bruce had had nightmares Alfred made him hot cocoa and they talked about it until Bruce felt he was safe enough to go to sleep, but he always woke himself from the dreams and Dick wasn’t awake enough for hot cocoa, so the man thought further back into memories long locked away to cover the pain of never having them again. He renumbered his mother singing to him, he couldn’t remember the song it was far to long ago but he did remember another song he had heard a mother singing to her child when Batman had rescued them from Two-Face before Robin had even existed, Bruce grimaced at the very thought but he was out of other ideas so he took a deep breath and started to sing.

“You are my sunshine. My only sunshine. You make me happy, when skies are gray. You’ll never know Dick, how much I love you. Please don’t take my sunshine away,” he sung and soon he felt the small body in his arms sag and the whimpering stopped and slowly blue eyes opened and stared up at Bruce before they filled with tears and Bruce found himself pulling the scared little boy into his arms. It was the first time that Bruce realized that he was a parent now and he needed to act like it, he swore he would be there for Dick for anything.


	2. Jason

**Jason**

Bruce waited alone until everyone had left, including Alfred before he collapsed to his knees in the wet Earth and laid his hand on-top of the gravestone in-front of him. He tried to fight the tears threatening to fall down his cheeks, but even he couldn’t stop them and soon they began to splash onto the wet mud beneath him. Slowly he looked up and ran his fingers over the words carved into the stone.

_Here Lies_

_Jason Peter Todd_

_Taken From Life Far Too Soon_

Bruce clenched his teeth as his hands balled into fists as he remembered the broken body he had reached to late, buried in the rubble of the building that had been blown up with Jason still inside beaten within an inch of his life by the Joker, all because Bruce had been too weak to refuse letting Jason become Robin. “I’m sorry Jason. I was to slow to save you,” Bruce whispered, angry at himself for being to slow, angry at himself for letting his son die at the hands of a mad man he should never have known. Angry because he should have listened to Dick when he warned him that Jason was to head strong and violent to follow orders, that one day it would get him killed. Bruce tried to get Jason to see things from his side but the boy had grown up where the only way to stay alive was to be more violent then the person trying to beat you. Bruce had neglected to teach Jason a better way before allowing him to become Robin, Bruce had neglected the fact that Jason was just a child, just as Dick had been. He should never have allowed either of them to become Robin, to do what he did. Bruce knew what being a hero did to people, he knew the dark abiss that you straddled ever night trying not to fall off of the edge, to go to a place that no one ever came back from.

Bruce had seen good people destroyed before and yet he allowed his boys to fight at his side and now it had cost more then even Bruce was prepared to give.

In his grief Bruce hadn’t even realised he had began to sing until he was reaching the final verse and then he found himself singing it again as his breath caught in his chest and the sobs were heard from miles around.

“You are my sunshine. My only sunshine. You make me happy, when skies are gray. You’ll never know Jason, how much I love you. Please don’t take my sunshine away!” Bruce howled in agony his head tipped towards the sky as thunder clapped over above him and slowly he bowed his head once again. “Please bring my sunshine back,” he whispered.

* * *

Years later Jason Peter Todd, now known as Red Hood, would find a very old video on the Bat computer under Dick’s profile, a video that had been labeled in such a way to make Bruce think it was something he never wanted to see, but Jason grinned at the very thought of black mail. “Hay Jason. I know you’re never going to see this, I mean how can you? You’re dead. But I had to make this video, I guess it’s my way of grieving for you Little Wing,” came Dick’s voice as the camera cleared to see Dick sitting on his bed in the manner wearing a black suit and tie with red eyes as if he had been crying. “We’ve just come back from your funeral. But I went back, Bruce hadn’t come home with us and I needed to make sure he was OK. He wasn’t as it turned out,” Dick said and the camera blacked out once more before it cleared again to a shaky video of Bruce knelt in the mud and rain in-front of Jason’s gravestone. Jason felt his eyes widen and his breath stop in his chest, he was about to shut the video off but froze when he heard the singing, it was Bruce singing and Jason felt his own eyes fill with tears. He had been so wrong and he had to fix his mistakes and now.

Bruce didn’t know why Jason had suddenly appeared from the cave (where he didn’t even know the boy was) and launch himself into Bruce’s arms, but all Bruce knew was that it felt right. He had his boy back.


	3. Tim

**Tim**

Bruce could only stare in horror as Tim collapsed to his knees after knocking out the Joker, the boy was crying his eyes wide and dead looking, it wasn’t his boy not anymore but yet it was at the same time. The Joker had tortured Tim until he was nothing more then a carbon copy of the Joker, he had changed Tim’s DNA. Batgirl pulled the sobbing boy into her arms and held him.

* * *

Hours later J’ohn wiped the Joker’s memory of everything Tim had told him as Leslie worked on returning Tim to normal with the help of the Flash but Bruce was frozen, he couldn’t help. He had failed again for a third time.

He had not wanted another Robin, not after what had happened to Jason and he swore he would never let it happen again. But Tim had broken down his walls and eventually the boy had become Robin before Bruce even seemed to realize it had happened and now his son was fighting against the DNA that the Joker had forced him to change into. Leslie warned that changing his DNA back could kill him, but Tim had refused to live like a miniature Joker and Bruce had agreed with him much to the horror of everyone present. Dick now refused to talk to him, but Bruce knew it was the right decision, even if it meant the pain of loosing another child to that mad man.

* * *

It took three weeks before Tim was allowed home to the manner and every night he awoke with nightmare's screaming and sobbing, but laughing at the same time. He refused to allow any one near him and had locked his bedroom door as well as barricaded it every night. But after it happened again Bruce had had enough and climbed out of his window and used his grappling gun to get to Tim’s window, the bat broke the window and tumbled into the room to find Tim in the corner of the room pulling at his hair with tears streaming down his cheeks but he was laughing, laughing just like he did when he was Joker Jr, his eyes glassy and unseeing. “Tim?” Bruce asked as he walked towards the boy who slowly turned his head a horrid smile twisting at his lips his eyes dead and Bruce saw a flash of the Joker through the boy, but also that scared little boy afraid to do any wrong lest Bruce leave him like his parents had. “Tim it’s OK,” Bruce whispered as he slowly approached the boy who pushed himself further into the corner still laughing as the tears dripped from his chin and onto his knees. Bruce stopped with Tim still out of arms reach and slowly sank to his knees onto the carpet floor and stared into the eyes of his son, the glassy eyes that seemed to recognize Bruce but at the same time seemed not to. Bruce knew words wouldn’t penetrate Tim’s brain to calm him like it would have before so he opened his mouth and started to sing. “You are my sunshine. My only sunshine. You make me happy, when skies are gray. You’ll never know Tim, how much I love you. Please don’t take my sunshine away,” his voice soft as he sung and soon he found his arms full of a sobbing Tim.

It took months before Tim was recovered from what the Joker had done to him, but Bruce knew that all it took was a song if Tim ever fell off the edge again.


	4. Damian

**Damian**

It happened after Talia had tried to use Bruce (with mind control) to kill Damian, Bruce had managed to fight against it but it was too close a call. Bruce had woken up to Damian sitting in the chair beside Bruce’s bed with his knees drawn to his chest and a knife held tightly in his hand, his eyes were fixed on the covered windows of Bruce’s bedroom and he seemed unaware that his father was awake. “Damian?” Bruce asked, his voice croaky and deep from sleep, Damian turned his head towards his father and blinked at him before his gaze once more returned to the window. “Damian what are you doing?” Bruce asked as he pushed himself into a sitting position, he had to close his eyes against the wave of dizziness form doing so.

“You must rest father,” Damian said, his own voice sounded raw to Bruce’s ears as he felt Damian try to push him back down onto the bed.

“You need to rest as well Damian,” Bruce replied as he curled his hand around Damian’s wrist to prevent the boy from moving back to the chair. Damian looked away to the side and Bruce saw just how small Damian was, just how young he was. Sometimes Bruce forgot that Damian was only ten years old as he often seemed so much older in his maturity. “Damian?” Bruce asked as he tried to make his boy look at him.

“I am fine,” Damian replied as he tried to wriggle his wrist from Bruce’s grip but Bruce just used it to pull Damian onto the bed with him and entangle the boy into his arms, the knife dropping to the floor with a dull thump.

“It’s not your job to protect me Damian. It’s my job to protect you and I failed and for that I am sorry,” Bruce said into Damian’s dark hair and the boy tensed slightly before he relaxed, in the year he had been here he was getting much better at forms of physical contact that didn’t involve pain or death. Bruce found himself humming and soon the words so often sung now began to seep from his mouth in a whisper. “You are my sunshine. My only sunshine. You make me happy, when skies are gray. You’ll never know Damian, how much I love you. Please don’t take my sunshine away.”

Bruce looked down as the song ended to find Damian fast asleep and the man smiled before he settled the boy beside him in the bed before he to joined his son in the land of nod. He was oblivious to the eyes that watched the pair from the door way of Bruce’s room until he felt the presence of others in his bed and Bruce smiled in his sleep surrounded by his sons and no doubt Alfred was not far away.


	5. Cass

**Cassandra**

Cassandra was by far the easiest and hardest of the children to bond with and take care of, but once Bruce had broken through the barriers that surrounded the silent girl he found himself being able to understand his daughter much easier then he did his sons. Cassandra was defiantly the closest with Bruce and often went to him for comfort in both the Bruce Wayne and Batman personas and Bruce readily allowed it, he had learnt by now that even as Batman he needed to show that he cared for his kids, he wouldn’t make the mistake a fifth time.

Bruce was sitting down in the cave at the Bat-Computer typing away when Black-Bat returned to the cave after patrol. Bruce didn’t even flinch when he found Cassandra curled up in his lap now wearing a pair of black fleece leggings and one of Bruce’s hoodies. “Are you OK Cass?” Bruce asked as he typed away at the Bat-Computer.

‘Tired’ Cass wrote with her finger onto Bruce’s wrist and the man looked down at the girl, who indeed looked exhausted under the hood that she had pulled up.

“Why not go to bed then?” Bruce asked.

‘You. Bed,’ Cass wrote onto his wrist once more and Bruce sighed.

“I can’t just yet Cass, I have to finish this first. Why don’t you go to bed thought hmm?” Bruce asked and sighed when Cass shook her head and laid it onto Bruce’s shoulder drawing circles onto Bruce’s chest where his heart was. “I love you to Cass,” Bruce mumbled in reply.

For an hour Bruce worked around Cass who remained on his lap and kept drifting off to sleep before jearking herself awake once more and Bruce was beginning to worry, Cass only ever refused to sleep when she didn’t feel safe, but she usually felt safe with Bruce but maybe she worried that Bruce wouldn’t go to bed if she fell asleep. Bruce smiled to himself and slowly he started to sing. “You are my sunshine. My only sunshine. You make me happy, when skies are gray. You’ll never know Cass, how much I love you. Please don’t take my sunshine away,” and whne he glanced down Cass was finally asleep and Bruce smiled before a yawn made his jaw crack. He glanced between Cass and the report he had been working on before he saved the file and slowly stood up and carried Cass to his room, maybe an early night was what he needed after all.


	6. +1 Bruce

**+1 Bruce**

The beeping of the heart monitor was the only sound within the med-bay in the watch tower, no one spoke, no one argued and no one was laughing; the usual sounds of the Bat-family when they were together was silenced. Upon the bed was a broken Batman covered in bruises and bandages, casts and machines. Fighting for his life once again, only this time no one knew weather he would even wake up let alone live.

It had been a standered mission for the Justice League, or it had been until they had been ambushed, Batman had been the intended target and while the League had been distracted the main villain had gone after Batman and a whole building had collapsed on-top of him burying him into the rubble. It had taken three hours for Superman and Wonder Woman to dig the broken Bat from the rubble and Batman had been in surgery for five hours to stabilize him, but even now it was touch and go as the weather or not he would survive the night.

* * *

Alfred was jerked awake by a blaring noise and Bruce’s bed was surrounded by doctors and nurses all shouting and someone tired to bustle Alfred from the room, but he refused to go as he shouted Bruce’s name and begged him not to leave him.

Alfred broke free and ran to the bed taking one of Bruce’s hands into his own, tears falling down his face as the doctors fought to restart his heart, no one dared try and bustle Alfred out again lest they receive the most terrifying glare of all, the glare of a father about to loose his child.

Alfred fell to his knees and pressed his lips to Bruce’s ear and he started to sing. “You are my sunshine. My only sunshine. You make me happy, when skies are gray. You’ll never know Bruce, how much I love you. Please don’t take my sunshine away.”

“Call it. Ten hundred hours,” the head doctor announced grimly and Alfred’s head shot up and his hand tightened on Bruce’s hand.

“No! You have to keep trying,” Alfred growled as he shot to his feet a glare on his face and tears falling down his cheeks.

“We have been trying for twenty minuets Mr Pennyworth, he isn’t responding,” the doctor replied.

“No you need to keep going. He isn’t gone, he is a fighter,” Alfred replied around a sob, he would later deny having made before he turned towards Bruce again and started his own chest compression's and he started to sing again. “You are my sunshine. My only sunshine. You make me happy, when skies are gray. You’ll never know Bruce, how much I love you. Please don’t take my sunshine away.”

Four times Alfred sung the song before finally hands landed on his shoulders and pulled him away he turned and sobbed into Jason’s chest as the family surrounded the bed to say goodbye. Batman was gone and no amount of singing was going to bring him back, his body was just to broken.

* * *

Three weeks later both Bruce Wayne had a funeral attended only by those who loved him the most. As Dick, Jason, Tim and Damian carried the casket into the church with Alfred and Cassandra leading them, their song played. ‘You are my sunshine’ played as they laid the casket down before they took their seats, it played again as they left the church and it played once more as Bruce Wayne was laid to rest surrounded by that of his family, the family he had made and the lives he had changed and made better for just being there and one day they would join him to the sounds of ‘You are my sunshine’ playing to guide them into the after life. There Bruce would be waiting for them with a large smile and a twinkle in his eye flanked by his parents and those who arrived before them.

Forever the Bat-family sang the song to future generations and the song carried on for years and years, never dying even as those who sung it died.


End file.
